Case study:

BLACK FRIDAY / BFCM 2025: How IconByDesign Increased November Revenue While Cutting Spend

How Connected Culture helped a premium, high-consideration furniture brand grow November revenue by 33% YoY while reducing paid media investment — then carried that momentum into BFCM with standout peak-period efficiency.

Introduction

IconByDesign is a direct-to-consumer premium furniture retailer, known for Scandinavian-inspired solid timber pieces and a high average order value. Entering BFCM 2025, the objective wasn’t to chase scale at any cost — it was to drive profitable growth during the most competitive trading month of the year.

Industry:

Furniture & Homewares (High-ticket eCommerce)

Services:

The Challenge

BFCM is the most saturated and expensive ad window in retail. For high-ticket furniture, this is amplified by long consideration cycles and customers who require multiple touchpoints to convert.

Heading into November/BFCM 2025, IconByDesign faced three key realities:

Peak-season auction pressure: CPMs rise and competitor activity surges.
Efficiency vs scale tension: increased budgets often reduce ROAS.
High-AOV behaviour: purchases are planned, not impulsive — trust and reassurance matter.

The brief: increase revenue without increasing waste, and make every ad dollar work harder through peak season.

The Solution

We executed a full-funnel, multi-channel BFCM system anchored in spend discipline, stronger creative, and high-intent capture.

1. Efficiency-first November strategy

Instead of scaling budgets simply because it was peak season, we reduced spend deliberately and reallocated to the highest-performing areas.

Paid spend down 14.7% YoY
Paid ROAS up 71% YoY
Paid conversion value up 80% YoY on less spend

This created a more efficient base heading into BFCM.

2. Google Ads as the high-intent closing engine

Google captured and converted demand from high-consideration shoppers:

PMax structure refined around intent and category depth
Budgets monitored tightly to avoid bottlenecks through BFCM
Result: Google revenue up 121.3% MoM while spend rose only 59.5%, improving efficiency by 38.7% MoM

3. Meta creative built to win BFCM

Meta performance was powered by a BAU reset across the year, then amplified with fresh BFCM creative:

Promotional formats built for urgency + confidence
Stronger hooks, clearer value, product-led storytelling
Wide diversification across static, lifestyle and video

This ensured we entered BFCM with proven assets ready to scale.

4. Channel mix tuned for peak-season ROAS

Microsoft and Pinterest operated as efficiency multipliers supporting blended performance:

Microsoft scaled as a high-ROAS search layer
Pinterest drove aspiration + discovery via catalogue structure

Together, these channels strengthened performance while auctions tightened.

Our Results

The results speak for themselves.

November 2025 (YoY)

November delivered major growth despite lower paid spend:

Revenue: +33% YoY
Orders: +31.5% YoY
AOV: +2.4% YoY (premium positioning protected)
Paid ROAS: +71% YoY
Paid conversion value: +80% YoY

BFCM 2025

The same efficiency-first approach carried through BFCM, producing strong peak-period results and validating the full-month growth strategy.

Weekend blended ROAS: 15.28x
Black Friday revenue: +61.8% YoY
Cyber Monday Meta ROAS: 4.5x higher than Black Friday

Channel Standouts

Meta Ads

Spend down 12% YoY
Purchases up 78.8% YoY
Revenue up 69.8% YoY
ROAS up 93.8% YoY
Cost-per-purchase down 51% YoY

Google Ads

ROAS remained strong across November
ROAS up 90% YoY
Conversions up 67% YoY
Conversion value up 67% YoY
ROAS lifted again during the BFCM window (+36.5% vs early-month efficiency)

Microsoft Ads

Revenue up 35% YoY on reduced spend
Spend down 25% YoY
ROAS up 80.4% YoY (highest month on record)

Pinterest Ads

7.11x ROAS while maintaining controlled spend
High-value orders driven from catalogue placements
Performance+ generated 67% of purchases

Key Insights

1. Efficiency beat aggression in peak season.
Reducing spend didn’t limit growth — it unlocked it. Strategic restraint and sharper allocation outperformed seasonal budget inflation.

2. Creative was a measurable growth lever.
BFCM refreshed creative pushed performance above BAU benchmarks, driving stronger click-through and conversion even in inflated auctions.

3. Cyber Monday outperformed Black Friday for IconByDesign.
Consideration-heavy shoppers converted later. The strongest returns came from late-weekend demand capture.

4. High-ticket retail needs multiple closers.
Search channels captured high-intent demand while Meta and Pinterest built trust and aspiration — enabling strong blended ROAS.

Why It Matters

This campaign demonstrates Connected Culture’s approach to profitable peak-season growth:

We scale profit, not waste.
We deliver significant growth even in the most competitive month of the year.
We combine full-funnel strategy, high-consideration creative systems and channel-specific efficiency plays

For premium, high-AOV eCommerce brands heading into BFCM, this is a blueprint for year-on-year revenue growth without sacrificing margin.

Testimonials

As a new business, Connected Culture was instrumental in executing a successful launch. Elzanne and her team are extremely dedicated, and the knowledge and expertise they brought to our business was invaluable. I'd definitely recommend Connected Culture for anyone wanting an invested agency partnership - they definitely walk the walk, not just talk the talk!

We are very pleased with the work of the Connected Culture team. They take the time to truly understand our goals and offer personalized solutions that have been able to drive results. Elzanne and Daniella are always happy to offer advice while we are learning these new avenues of digital marketing.

Elzanne and her team of amazing superstars at Connected Culture have, in a very short space of time, developed and executed the entire digital marketing strategy for our newly launched business. To add to their credit, this was all done amongst a tight budget and with limited resources (and during the COVID-19 crisis!).

Amazing company to work with. Connected Culture was recommended by a business associate. Elzanne has an in-depth understanding of marketing and branding and how to deliver outcomes driven by strategy through to detailed execution. She is a member of our advisory team and an invaluable contributor. Our team works with Connected Culture on a truly collaborative basis.

Connected Culture has been great to work with. They have helped our business considerably, shifting from predominately a retail business into e-commerce. Their approach to digital marketing has been impressive and their strategy, analytics and use of data have been incredible. It's an added bonus that all of their team are legends to work with too!

Connected Culture are amazing. These people go above and beyond to help your business grow. My business is an ecommerce Furniture business that is only 12 months old. When I first met Elzanne from Connected Culture I told her that I am after transparency and honesty as I was previously burnt by another Digital Agency who took my money and did no work. Elzanne and her team picked up the pieces and put all the right things in place and were very honest and transparent and explained everything to me about the next steps to help achieve our goals and help my business grow. These people really care about your business and I highly recommend Connected Culture.

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Connected Culture partners with lifestyle and furniture retailers across Australia and New Zealand — including Urban Sales, Shack, Glicks, and Luxo Living — to build brands that perform and scale.